Possession
The Maximals and Predacons' Beast Wars are taking a turn. For as you see... Starscream returns. Chapter Summary A violent storm rages, causing significant damage and knocking out power to both the Maximal and Predacon bases. While the Maximals stash their extra ammo deeper in their ship's hold to prevent undue accidents, Justin attempts to get one of the base's computer consoles online...only to be greeted by a ghostly, shrill voice from it. A power surge hits the boy soon afterwards, and he walks out of the base, with a blank protoform stasis pod in tow. Before the Maximals could question his actions, Razorbeast realizes one of Rattrap's explosives are missing from the storage. Snarl and Bonecrusher are informed this, as they look around the rear of the ship, stating that the vid feeds showed him going in there last, as he took the stasis pod. They find the explosion, but not in time, as it blows a massive hole in the Sentinel station. At the Predacon base, they are having troubles of their own, due to a similar storm being knocked around. And when the other Predacons begin to wonder what had set off an alarm, they are greeted by a rather suave Justin, announcing his return "at long last" in the same eerie voice. The voice belongs to Starscream, Air Commander of the Decepticon forces and second-in-command to the original Megatron, whose spark had been tumbling through time and space for an unknown number of years before settling within Waspinator. As he puts it, he was destroyed defending Megatron from the Chaos Bringer, Unicron, but his spark endured. As a show of his good faith, he pledges his loyalty to the Predacon Megatron, revealing vital information about the state of the Maximal base due to the storm, intelligence Megatron could use to plan a sneak attack. Intrigued by the idea, Megatron accepts Starscream into his ranks. The next day, as the Maximals are making repairs to their base and to find Justin, they are suddenly attacked by the Preds, and Starscream's intel proves very useful in catching them off-guard. In the ensuing firefight, Dinobot is injured and the Decepticon Air Commander fools Optimus Primal, as well as reprogramming Sentinel to attack the Maximals, forcing the Maximals to abandon ship and regroup outside. Happy with their victory, Megatron puts Starscream in charge of holding the Axalon, with Scorponok, Waspinator, and Blackarachnia under his command, while the rest of the Predacons return to their base, in case the Maximals decide to go for a sneak attack of their own. However, despite being pleased with Starscream's help, Megatron warns both Waspinator and Scorponok in private to watch their new ally closely. Once they're alone, though, Blackarachnia shows off her knack for history by correctly pointing out to Starscream that he was torn apart by Predaking, the original Predacon, after Megatron had disbanded the Decepticons. She's willing to keep this a secret, though, if she's let in on his real plans: to destabilize Megatron's control and rule both factions. Deep in the forest, as the Maximals recover, Optimus Primal voices his confusion and concern over Justin's betrayal new personality. Foxfire, and an even more peeved Wind-Rider, disagree with Justin’s choice, stating that he was their friend, and would never do such a thing. But Cheetor, being Justin’s friend, stated that somehow he had done so anyway. Primal isn't entirely convinced Justin is possessed by the spark of Starscream, but as the Maximal Elders had long since sealed the Decepticon's records, they're not able to confirm or deny it, either. Fortunately, Dinobot's as much of a military history buff as Blackarachnia is, commenting on how Webster's Cybertronian Dictionary has pretty much replaced all definitions of "traitor" with Starscream's name. Realizing Starscream's tendencies, Optimus Primal leads the Maximals in returning to the Axalon and calling Starscream out to announce their surrender, citing the need to use the ship's CR Chamber to repair Dinobot's (now exaggerated) wounds. Feeling generous, the Decepticon Air Commander allows Optimus and Dinobot to come on board, but as predictably as night follows day, betrays them and strips Optimus of his weapons and locks him up in the hold as soon as he steps on deck. With their leader now his prisoner, Starscream orders the other Maximals to attack the Predacon base, over the token objections of Scorponok, who is then blasted away by Starscream and Blackarachnia, with Waspinator strangely absent. They comply, and the trap is set. Unbeknown to the Air Commander, he's been duped by the oldest trick in the book; by allowing himself to be betrayed, Optimus Primal has put himself and Dinobot in the perfect position to retake their base. Dinobot and Primal break free, and corner Starscream, as his back is turned while sitting in a chair. They turn it around, and are surprised to see Justin bound and gagged. Dinobot removes the gag, as Justin warns them of a sneak attack behind them. They turn around, and see the now possessed Waspinator take fire at them. They forced him to retreat, as he called out that he has a real prize to go after. Which they do in a dazzling display that forces Starscream and Blackarachnia to retreat back to Predacon territory. Upon hearing of the Maximal attack that is ordered by Starscream, Megatron angrily swears to finish both Starscream and Blackarachnia off himself. Optimus pursues and manages to best the Decepticon in an aerial dogfight, leaving him grovelling at the Maximal's feet...until Blackarachnia shows up, prompting Starscream to plead for her aid, believing they can still complete their coup. No dice; this new generation is much less gullible than their ancestors, and Blackarachnia has skillfully pulled off a double-cross on the double-crosser, igniting a small energon cache underneath Starscream to "exorcise" the Decepticon's spark from Waspinator's body. At the end of the day, Megatron gets done fixing the back-to-normal Waspinator as Blackarachnia explains her betrayal; if she hadn't done it, she maintains, she wouldn't have been able to sniff out Starscream's true motives. Megatron reluctantly accepts this excuse, but warns her that it still doesn't invoke confidence in her loyalties. Although Spittor comments that they’re all happy that Starscream’s gone, but Megatron had to ponder on all this aloud. He stated that Starscream’s defeat seemed far too easy, as if he expected this would have been the outcome. And that leaving Seyvont’s body and entering Waspinator’s body also added another question: if he could enter another’s body, why bother entering Justin’s body in the first place. It speculated that Starscream could have hacked into the boy’s knowledge, giving him rather accessed knowledge on the current Cybertronian technology, and that the hours before the switch, Blackarachnia also made mention that during the time, Starscream was studying information on this planet’s science on Neurology. Scroponok then asked why. But Blackarachnia silently realized what Starscream was up to the whole time. Back at the Axalon, the Maximals after finishing up repairs of their own...everyone also came to the same conclusion. Justin, feeling responsible for all this, silently vowed that he’ll do everything and anything to stop Starscream, should he ever resurface. Aelita hugs him, telling that she’ll help as well, but not until she was playfully shoved aside, as Wind-Rider embraced him, as she vowed to do the same, and blew a raspberry at a fuming Aelita. As the goofiness ensued, elsewhere, in Romania, the stasis pod that Justin had stolen, as well as a lot of cybertonian equipment, hums to life, scanning a vampire bat. The pod opens, revealing a giant brown vampire bat, as it transforms… into a newly revived Predacon, Starscream. Quotes *Starscream: "MEGATRON was a fool! I desire to lead than him if it wasn't for Predaking slaggin me cycles ago I would lead the Decpeticons into a golden age of power and the Autobots would soon be annihilate under my rule. " *“Planet Earth… I have returned.” Starscream, as he is revived in his new Predacon body. Trivia *Starscream, if the series started again, would be voiced by Steven Blum. Category:Chapters